Kommunalka

あらすじ

In Saint Petersburg in Russia, there still exists communal apartments, vestiges of the Soviet system. People from all backgrounds and social classes are gathered together here, due to circumstance. They form a cross-section of Russian society grouped together in the same place. Kommunalka is a-slice-of-life portrait of a communal apartment in Sovetskaya Street.

In this apartment, there lives 26-year-old Natasha, a child of the Perestroika, a beautiful and sensual young woman, liberated, emancipated, and independent. Although without particular hopes or illusions, she still holds onto her dreams. Around Natacha, we find the apartment's other inhabitants: Svetla and Nicolas, both retired and without a dime; Valodia, Natacha's friend; Rostilov, a poet and painter; Irina, an elderly woman who is unable to come to terms with the death of her son in Afghanistan; Tatiana, who buys, one by one, the vacant rooms and who is the "landlady" of the apartment; Sacha, a failed actor; two little girls and a dancer; Youri, a student.

The intertwined fates of these people joined together in this enclosed environment become the theater of human passion.